Ansible ignoring conditional

Question

I am working on a ansible playbook for my servers (mix of ubuntu and centos) and when trying to transfer some config files for monit if a program is installed I am running into an issue. It works perfectly on my centos machines but the ubuntu one's it transfers the template no matter what completely ignoring the conditional. ``` --- - name: Check for Sendmail (Ubuntu) shell: dpkg-query -W -f='${Status} ${Version}
' sendmail register: ubuntu_installed when: ansible_distribution == 'Debian' or ansible_distribution == 'Ubuntu' changed_when: False failed_when: "'FAILED' in ubuntu_installed.stderr" - debug: var=ubuntu_installed - name: Check for Sendmail (CentOs) shell: rpm -qa | grep sendmail register: cent_installed when: ansible_distribution == 'CentOS' or ansible_distribution == 'Red Hat Enterprise Linux' changed_when: False failed_when: "'FAILED' in cent_installed.stderr" - name: Transfer Monit config files for Sendmail (Ubuntu) template: src=monit/templates/sendmail.j2 dest=/etc/mon…

Accepted Answer

Here's your conditional:

```
-  when: ubuntu_installed.skipped is not defined and ubuntu_installed.stdout != "" and ansible_distribution == 'Debian' or ansible_distribution == 'Ubuntu'
```

Your precedence is incorrect: A and B and C or D means is (A and B and C) or D, which is not what you want. (note Ansible conditionals use Jinja2 expressions, which reflect Python conditionals, so here are the precedence rules).

Lazy programmers add parenthesis for clarity; here's the revised conditional:

```
-  when: (ubuntu_installed.skipped is not defined and ubuntu_installed.stdout != "") and (ansible_distribution == 'Debian' or ansible_distribution == 'Ubuntu')
```

PS- you showed the output to one command, `debug`, but it's helpful to give alllll the output. That's `ansible-playbook -vvv`.

Ansible ignoring conditional

Solution

Problem